Improved Runway Lights

[Corona688]

20 hours ago, Van Disaster said:

the problem is the lit up bits get so small the game decides not to draw them, and you want to force it to draw at least one pixel for much longer. It's complicated a bit by the multiple cameras KSP uses, perhaps we just need to put stuff in the right layer.

Why not just use a luminance channel which ignores lighting, like the green light on the tiny battery does?

[Jonfliesgoats]

Y'all have good ideas.  What about a tier 4 runway having ALS, PAPI and some sort of approach guidance in the navball akin to ILS in airplanes or the old, shuttle MLS?  Tier 4 runways would see an improvement in landing capability after tier three levels up launching capability.

Maybe an expensive tier 4 runway could provide electronic and subsequent visual guidance from LKO to KSC?

[Van Disaster]

18 hours ago, Corona688 said:

Why not just use a luminance channel which ignores lighting, like the green light on the tiny battery does?

The "proper" way to do it is with LODs ( just make a bigger object for further distances ) which is a Unity Pro feature unfortunately ( I think? didn't check for U5 actually ). There might be as simple a solution as modifying a shader's depth offset to force it on top of everything else so it's object isn't blended into oblivion. Dunno, apparently I'm still not quite familiar enough with Unity's render pipeline...

@Jonfliesgoatsuntil there's instrumentation in stock, you might want to look at Navutilities.

Edited September 13, 2016 by Van Disaster

[GoSlash27]

I tried making my own stock PAPI lights a couple years ago. In addition to the problems stated above, lights don't actually show color unless you bounce them off of a surface and they seriously degrade frame rate. Overall, I didn't find them to be worth the aggravation. It'd be nice to have something integrated into the game that did the job well.

JMO,
-Slashy

 

[The_Rocketeer]

I don't need this. PAPI is basically a training tool AFAIC, once a player/pilot has a bit of experience it's not hard at all to judge even a really short landing approach and stick it. In fact as flight sims go, KSP is very accommodating in how bad you can be and still pull it off.

I really recommend anybody who has trouble landing planes in KSP try another flight sim program and work thru the landing tutorials.

Perhaps that (pilot tutorials) is something that KSP could have that would streamline things a little. I'd like that better than PAPI, which could too easily become an undesirable crutch - after all, anywhere u land a plane that isn't KSC has no lights, lines or (with one exception) runway at all. On the other hand, if PAPI lights were a thing, they wouldn't bother me (except perhaps as more clutter to potentially crash into ), so I'm on the fence on this one.

TL:DR, pilot experience is better than a piloting aid.
 

Edited September 13, 2016 by The_Rocketeer

[Van Disaster]

I never use a "correct" glideslope anyway, I find returning spaceplanes at least to be much more comfortable with a very flat approach over the sea. I did use the PAPI plugin for a bit but never paid much attention to it.

In other news, may have found a simple visibility solution by using a custom vertex shader to scale lighting quads up with distance ( which is what I'd have done with a LOD ).

[ImmaStegosaurus!]

Approach lights and markers for them. If I have to land at night I can't be arsed to crash on the runway or construct my own approach lights anymore. I prefer to attempt to ditch in the sea instead for better chances of survival.

[Jonfliesgoats]

Just watched a video regarding Nav Utilities.  I like it!

[Corona688]

6 hours ago, GoSlash27 said:

I tried making my own stock PAPI lights a couple years ago. In addition to the problems stated above, lights don't actually show color unless you bounce them off of a surface and they seriously degrade frame rate. Overall, I didn't find them to be worth the aggravation. It'd be nice to have something integrated into the game that did the job well.

JMO,
-Slashy

 

Again that's why I suggest the lumiance channel or KSP equivalent, it bypasses lighting entirely and just shows under all conditions.  It's cheap and fast and doesn't care about distance, who cares if it's cheating?

Edited September 13, 2016 by Corona688

[Stoney3K]

On 13-9-2016 at 1:50 PM, The_Rocketeer said:

I don't need this. PAPI is basically a training tool AFAIC, once a player/pilot has a bit of experience it's not hard at all to judge even a really short landing approach and stick it. In fact as flight sims go, KSP is very accommodating in how bad you can be and still pull it off.

I really recommend anybody who has trouble landing planes in KSP try another flight sim program and work thru the landing tutorials.

Perhaps that (pilot tutorials) is something that KSP could have that would streamline things a little. I'd like that better than PAPI, which could too easily become an undesirable crutch - after all, anywhere u land a plane that isn't KSC has no lights, lines or (with one exception) runway at all. On the other hand, if PAPI lights were a thing, they wouldn't bother me (except perhaps as more clutter to potentially crash into ), so I'm on the fence on this one.

TL:DR, pilot experience is better than a piloting aid.
 

Even though I really love building and flying planes, this is defiintely true. Anywhere but the KSC means you have no way of guidance to some sort of "runway". PAPI isn't really necessary but some better visibility of the runway at night would be great. As far as navigation instruments go, they're pretty useless unless there is more scenery and more contracts to support flying planes -- perhaps some villages or cities across Kerbin which have their own runways. Right now you can fly a lap around the pattern at the KSC and hop to the island runway, and that's basically it.

Precision lighting like a PAPI and instrument landings really only become a thing if there is something else on Kerbin: Weather. In clear skies, you can land visually just fine if you get on course towards the runway early enough. Systems like PAPI and ILS are meant to allow pilots to stay on course even in torrential rain.

Also, as a player you can hardly place any navigation beacon on another body, save for flags, which only have limited usage (for example, if you want to construct a runway on Duna from scratch).

[Castille7]

On 9/11/2016 at 1:19 PM, Rocket In My Pocket said:

This is KSP.

Make your own lights and drive them out there. (Make sure you to keep them to the sides/ends of the runway, not actually on it as you won't be able to launch.)

The fun is in solving the problem yourself via clever engineering.

@Rocket In My Pocket Just an fyi, I just spent a couple hours with this clever engineering and my attempt came up short. I would have loved to pull this one off but! too many parts in my design on my first go at it. The size would need to be much bigger, I might try it again later.

Edited October 16, 2016 by Castille7